3 facts about michelangelo buonarroti biography

1. A jealous rival broke his nose when he was a teenager.

As a teen, Michelangelo was sent to live and study in the home of Lorenzo de’ Medici, then one of the most important art patrons in all of Europe.

His steady hand with a chisel and paintbrush soon made him the envy of all his fellow pupils.

3 facts about michelangelo buonarroti biography

One young rival named Pietro Torrigiano grew so enraged at Michelangelo’s superior talent—and perhaps also his sharp tongue—that he walloped him in the nose, leaving it permanently smashed and disfigured. “I gave him such a blow on the nose that I felt bone and cartilage go down like biscuit beneath my knuckles,” Torrigiano later bragged, “and this mark of mine he will carry with him to the grave.”

2.

He first rose to prominence after a failed attempt at art fraud.

Early in his career, Michelangelo carved a now-lost cupid statue in the style of the ancient Greeks. Upon seeing the work, his patron Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici proposed an elaborate con.

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